NES 3864

National Security in the Middle East

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2014-2015.

National security in general and the security sector (the military and the other security services) in particular, are critical factors when attempting to comprehend both recent and past developments in the Middle East, including, most recently, the events of the "Arab Spring" and its aftermath. In this course, we will discuss the different political, economic, social and cultural roles played by the military and the security sector, but also by more informal "security networks," and, occasionally, by violent sub-state non-state actors (VISNAS) and violent trans-national non-state actors (VITNAS), in the Middle East as a subcategory of the non-Western regions. In the first part of the course, we will discuss some of the main areas where the impact of the security sector, of informal "security networks," and of VISNAS and/or VITNAS can be discerned: the process of state formation and its various facets; the relationship between the civilian and security spheres; and inter-communal relations. We will then zoom in on several illustrative case studies from the Middle East, including Israel, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.

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